Fundamentum raises $227m for India growth-stage tech fund
The Fundamentum Partnership, an India-based growth-stage technology investment firm established by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and Helion Venture Partners co-founder Sanjeev Aggarwal, has closed its second fund on USD 227m.
The firm raised USD 100m for its debut vehicle in 2018, having received LP commitments from the likes of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), according to AVCJ Research.
The Economic Times reported – in a story referenced on the Fundamentum website – that there is an option to increase the Fund II corpus to as much as USD 250m. It added that Fundamentum team members contributed one-quarter of the capital raised.
In addition to Nilekani and Aggarwal, Ashish Kumar, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, is identified as a co-founder and general partner. He also leads the fundraising and investment processes.
Fundamentum describes its strategy as backing founders who have identified large market opportunities and are solving uniquely Indian problems. It enters once a start-up has established product-market fit, writing cheques of USD 10m-USD 15m as the lead or co-lead investor in rounds of USD 25m to USD 40m.
“We believe Series B and Series C continue to be underserved. We have also created an advisory panel to help these companies on strategy, marketing, leadership development – as it goes back to our philosophy of giving not just money, but more,” Nilekani told The Economic Times. He added that the new fund would back consumer technology and software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies.
Fund I made six investments: drugstore portal PharmEasy, used car marketplace Spinny, artificial intelligence-enabled logistics platform FarEye, vacation booking business Travel Triangle, opinion-tracking start-up Probo, and Ayu Health Hospitals. These companies have raised over USD 1bn in follow-on funding, with PharmEasy and Spinny both achieving unicorn status.
Several Helion alumni have gone on to launch new firms, with Kanwaljit Singh forming Fireside Ventures and Rahul Chandra establishing Arkam Ventures, which was originally called Unitary Helion Ventures. Arkam closed its debut fund on USD 106m earlier this year.
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